COMRADE Joe Ajaero has been sworn in as the new President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) at the end of the 13th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of Nigeria’s foremost labour centre which held February 7-8, 2023 at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja.
Ajaero emerged unopposed along with all members of the new national leaders following a consensus in the runup to the two-day conference.
Ajaero and the new national leadership who were sworn in by human rights lawyer and activist, Femi Falana, SAN, will serve for four years under this tenure.
Comrade Ajaero is the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and a Deputy President of NLC until his confirmation by the congress which is the highest organ of the NLC.
Ajaero takes over from Comrade Ayuba Wabba, who served two terms of four years each since February 2015.
In his acceptance speech, Comrade Ajaero assured workers that his leadership will be committed to pursuing the interests and desires of Nigerian workers, pledging that he will speak for millions of Nigerians and seek a platform to lift them out of poverty.
He said under his leadership, the NLC will pursue a new national minimum wage law that would take into context the socio-economic realities in the country.
According to him, the wage review law will be sought through the National Labour Advisory Council to ensure that all loopholes exploited by workplace partners to restrict the efforts of making workplaces more decent compliant are blocked.
He said: “The NLC will pursue with utmost urgency a new national minimum wage law that would take into consideration the objective realities of our socio-economy; expand its reach to capture more workers and create variables and thresholds for automatic adjustment of the nation’s wage floor to avoid unnecessary politicking and impunity by our employers and reduce the suffering of Nigerian workers.
“We are committed to resolutely pursuing the interests and desires of Nigerian workers and by extension the majority of Nigerian masses. We, therefore, pledge our loyalty to the NLC, Nigerian workers, Nigerian masses and Nigeria. Our breathe comrades, our thoughts and our actions shall be propelled by this avowal!
“We shall seek to reconnect more strongly to build greater solidarities with the people of Nigeria rising once again to be the carriers of their desires and amplifiers of their voices.
“We shall not only speak for the 133m Nigerians who are multidimensionally poor but shall also seek platforms to lift the shackles of poverty from the shoulders of our people. We shall once again be the true champions of the Nigerian people; crying their cries and jointly waging our wars against all forces of impoverishment and misery.”
According to him, the NLC under his stewardship will expand its reach by organising unorganised sectors to bring in more workers into the NLC family.
“We urge all employers of labour who have unsettled issues with their workers and unions to immediately resolve them to avoid our intervention,” he said as he urged the government to review the privatisation policy on the electricity sector as it was mired in corruption.
